Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has ruled out working with Opportunity after the election.
Opportunity has polled within a percentage point of the 5% threshold in three different public polls in recent weeks. If the party made it into Parliament on current polling its support would be needed for either the coalition or the Opposition parties to govern.
Part of the party’s platform is a stated desire to work with both sides of politics.
Luxon was asked at his post-Cabinet press conference about whether he could “coalesce” with Opportunity after the election by the party’s former comms chief Sean Plunket, who now runs online broadcaster The Platform.
Luxon responded: “We wouldn’t want to be in business with people who want to increase taxes.”
Luxon was referring to Opportunity’s main policy – a land tax that would pay for a universal basic income.
Very pleased to see this. Voters can now be clear that a vote for TOP is a vote for a Labour/Green/TOP/Te Pati Maori Government.
TOP are proposing the biggest ever increase in tax and welfare that the NZ economy has seen. They would increase the tax take as a proportion of the NZ economy from the current 27.6% to 32.9%. And they would use it to turn every single New Zealanders into a beneficiary.
Another key policy is to have violent and sexual offenders aged under 25 dealt with by the youth court. So 24 year old gang rapists would get a family group conference rather than prison.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders
7 comments:
TOP's publicity make out they are a centrist party that "rejects traditional left-right tribalism", and that "focuses heavily on data, market innovation and productivity," The reality, if you read their policies, are that they are more left wing than the Greens.
They are fully behind He Puapua - one of their candidates helped author that document. They are also more radical than the Greens about climate change, yet somehow they also want to increase energy production. They want to gut the fishing industry. They want to massively increase the public service, and have more controls over the private sector. As David points out, they also want massive increases in taxation and welfare.
Under their policies to increase the age of criminal responsibility, Graeme Burton (with his first murder), William Bell, Phillip John Smith, Antonie Dixon, Raymond Ratima and Dean Wickliffe would have all been considered as youth offenders.
“Voters can now be clear that a vote for TOP is a vote for a Labour/Green/TOP/Te Pati Maori Government”
No that isn’t true. A vote for TOP is a vote for TOP. Studies show that most TOP voters came from National, NZ First, and Labour. David isn’t trying to misframe how MMP works, is he?
Luxon is desperate to do anything he can to not be a one term government. The right-wing blogosphere appears to be right behind him and hitting all the programmed talking points.
National is resorting to all sorts. The Free Speech Union ‒ which exists to defend free speech ‒ has attacked a journalist for asking Health Minister Simeon Brown questions over email, after it obtained questions sent by a Post reporter about one of his appointments.
What is going on at National!? And what is this craziness with the FSU attacking free speech?
Anon 720 FSU has not attacked free speech; that is Stuff spin. FSU says Vance is free to ask questions and FSU is also free to ask why those questions are being asked. Stuff is doing its activists' job on behalf of radical Maori , Labour, Greens etc. Naturally the latter want to maintain the highly politicised ''treaty'' spin brigade on the Medical Council
Anyone who thinks TOP is a good choice have been misled or are willingly blind to their far left socialist / pseudo communist intentions.
Why would FSU be sticking up for a government minister on a topic that has nothing to do with free speech?
This is 1984 style doublespeak!
Hang on, didn’t Simeon just appoint a SECOND FSU member to a position in the health dept? What on earth is going on and where are the journalists looking into this? Simeon is a rat and it is in full display.
Post a Comment
Thank you for joining the discussion. Breaking Views welcomes respectful contributions that enrich the debate. Please ensure your comments are not defamatory, derogatory or disruptive. We appreciate your cooperation.